


the accomplice of human restlessness

by WhirlyBird70



Series: the nearest thing to dreams hands have ever made [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, Zoro comes from a sleepy mountain town, Zoro meets luffy for the first time, Zoro's backstory, mentions of child abuse, platonic, probably despite research Inaccurate descriptions of modern sword fighting, um, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 07:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19421518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: It all starts in a sleepy mountain town, with two boys, a beat up hand-me-down Camaro, and the sense of a compass finally pointing home and away from the cage Zoro had been trapped in.Or - How Luffy found Zoro.





	the accomplice of human restlessness

**Author's Note:**

> _"The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness." ― Joseph Conrad_

Zoro knows Luffy for six and a half days before he agrees to run off ( _and **search** ) _with him.

Or, in a more accurate wording, it takes six and half seconds for Zoro to know he would follow Luffy to the ends of the universe if he wanted to venture there (because the Earth was way too small for the _thing_ that they shared.) 

It all starts like this - 

(And it never, ever ends.)

\- 

Zoro is walking home from school (which he skipped, half way through the day, because he could not take Mr. Morgan’s bullshit for one more _goddamn second-_ ) when he sees _him_.

He’s slight and thin, with far too many bruises covered tanned skin, and suspiciously young to be sitting in the driver’s seat of a custom Camaro (which is sitting crookedly on the side of the road) like _that_. But when he looks up at Zoro, red hoodie falling off his head and revealing his face and the scar sloping under his eye, Zoro’s breath is taken away.

This boy (his captain, his _king_ ) is not weak in any sense of the word.

And the smile that he gives him, full of sunshine and without any of the weary dread that shines in his in his eyes, is all that it takes for Zoro to fall.

Zoro slings his bag off his shoulder and throws it in the backseat of the car, sliding into the passenger seat.

“Where to?” He asks, all too trusting, all too _insane._

The boy next to him places a straw hat that was previously resting on the dashboard onto his head. “Nowhere yet.” He says with a laugh, starting the car. Zoro nods, and off they go, to the abandoned parking lot on the edge of town, where they eat cheap shakes that they didn’t really pay for and don’t talk at all (they don’t need too) until Zoro has to wander home.

Before he does he asks the boy his name, the second words they shared that day.

“Monkey D. Luffy,” He says, smiling, the setting sun casting shadows onto his face. “Ah! But don’t tell anyone okay? I’m just Luffy.”

“Aye, aye Captain,” Zoro says, for no reason at all other than it feels all to _wrong_ not to say it. “The names Zoro. I’ll see you around?" 

Luffy doesn’t answer as Zoro walks off, but that’s okay.

Zoro already knows what he means.

-

Koushirou asks him only once about what makes Zoro so happy on the first day that this _miracle_ happens and Zoro tells him, trying to convey what makes Luffy so _Luffy,_ what makes him finally find direction and fill that _aching_ inside _._ He doesn’t know if he succeeds, but that’s okay. Koushirou never needed to know anyway.

(This time around, Koushirou is the man who adopted the rising kendo star in order to train him further. This time around, Koushirou stops training him when his real child ( _Kuina-)_ dies. This time around, there is no promise to be the greatest because swordsmanship is only a competition now, not a way of life, of _death_. This time around there is only loss and the ache of a compass spinning wildly around with no direction.)

The day after, Zoro doesn’t even bother going to school. Instead, he wanders over to the abandoned parking lot and through the open window of the car (did he have no self-preservation?) shakes Luffy, who was sleeping in the backseat, curled up into a little ball with his red hoodie acting as a weak blanket, awake.

“Wanna spar?” He asks to bleary eyes, heart jumping at the sudden light in them when Luffy agrees.

Zoro brings out his practice bamboo swords and Luffy brings out his fists. They fight for two hours, two hours of sweat and some blood and the absolute _freedom_ that comes with finding someone who won’t hold back against you, who _understands-_

Eventually, the human need to eat interrupts their conversation of fighting, and together they dine and dash at the local chain restaurant, laughing all the while. Zoro doesn’t comment on the nostalgic, sorrowful look in Luffy’s eyes and Luffy doesn’t comment on the understanding and elation in Zoro’s.

It’s a good thing.

A _great_ thing.

They don’t spar again after that, at least on this day. Instead, they talk.

“Where’ you from?”

“Fuusha City. Its far away from here. Why’s your hair green?”

“’Cause it looks cool. Where’d you learn to fight?”

“…Around. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. You?”

“Fourteen.”

“And you’re driving the car? Damn, how’d you not get caught?”

“ _Shishishi_ \- I don’t know. Maybe I’m just lucky? Why do you use only two swords?”

“Because-” And any answer no matter how sensible suddenly sounds _wrong._ “Huh.”

Luffy nods and that’s that.

-

Zoro spends all the money he had saved up for a motorcycle and picks up a third sword on the way home, saying nothing to the woman who runs the store as she worries over the supposed cursed sword (She looks so much like Kuina it hurts but the ex-marines shop is the only one with good swords around here.)

In the mirror at home, ignoring Koushirou’s critical looks (though he never mentions it he doesn’t like it when Zoro skips school) he practices his swords, changing the style drilled into him by Koushirou and placing a practice sword in his mouth.

Its new and shaky but sword fighting has never felt so _right._

-

The third day is raining, and while Zoro has a flashing concern for the boy with only a car for a home, he goes to school.

He has few friends there – most are either scared of him or hate him – but its tolerable. Koby, pink haired and a Marine-hopeful, is scared of him but hangs out with him anyway. Zoro doesn’t claim to understand it, doesn’t even care, but there’s not a lot to do in Shells Town and it’s better to have someone to do it with.

“Where’d you go yesterday?” Koby asks, used to him skipping but, for some reason Zoro can’t understand, is always worried that he’ll skip on accident because he got lost. ( _Lies_ , Zoro claims, _the streets move and you people give horrible directions_ , but can’t refute the fact that he once ended up the next town over on the fifteen-minute walk to school)

Zoro shrugs and bites into his sandwich. “Around. Met a guy.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.” Zoro doesn’t offer any more than that and Koby, while wary, doesn’t push it. Instead, he looks him up and down and smiles. “What?” Zoro asks suspicious.

“You seem happier. More… something.” He says, and immediately flinches when Zoro casts him a look that says it all. _The heck?_

 _(_ Inside, there’s a whisper within Zoro that says _Of course I’m happier with **him.** He’s my captain, my **king**. _But he doesn’t hear it.

Even if in this life it’s still true.)

-

Later that night, amidst the pouring rain, Zoro attempts to go to sleep.

In the end, its futile, as his chest and ankles and eye ache as they always have, in a way unexplainable even to the best doctors, keeping him awake.

And…

There’s somewhere he needs to go.

So he goes, swords and a warm blanket in a bag on his back, slipping out the second story window and onto the tree next to it as rain crashes down on his shoulders. It’s a 25-minute bike ride, which takes longer in the pouring rain, but eventually he makes it to the abandoned lot on the outskirts of the town between the mountains, where the only car is an old flame detailed Camaro sitting alone in the lot.

Zoro knocks on the window in a session of quick motions. Inside, Luffy is almost how he found him yesterday morning, curled into a ball with his hoodie as a blanket. The only difference is this time, he’s awake, eyes wide and trembling, and sitting up with his arms wrapped around his legs. 

When he meets Zoro’s eyes there is a dull recognition before he is scrambling over to unlock the door and haul Zoro in.

“Hey,” Zoro says softly, feeling as if he spoke too loudly the world would shatter around him.

“Hey,” Luffy says back just quiet, huddling into Zoro’s side, not even noticing the damp clothes. 

It’s funny, Zoro notes, that if anyone else had touched him so casually he would have shoved them away in a heartbeat.

Zoro has a feeling (a knowledge) that Luffy doesn’t care much for rules of any kind.

Allowing Luffy to lean into him, he reaches down to where he slung his bag and takes out the blanket within, thankfully still dry. He takes a moment to wrap it around them both, and then, to the rumbling music of thunder and rain, talks.

-

What Zoro tells Luffy is this.

He’s an orphan, a foster child, tossed around and forgotten about for the majority of his childhood – he can’t even remember the place where he began now. There were good homes ( _Zoro you want to play with us? Oh – that’s a swordfighting contest, you want to watch it?)_ and bad homes ( _Zoro you aren’t allowed to eat – waste of space – sit out in the yard til I call you in)_ but none of them permanent - until he landed himself in a kendo competition near his Sensei’s home. There, his Sensei adopted him in order to further his skills after seeing his talent.

His Sensei had a daughter who he ignored, even though her talent was even greater than Zoro’s, all because she was a girl.

Zoro had trained with his Sensei, with Koushirou, hoping he could find whatever was _missing_ from him when he picked up a sword. He never found it because two years after Zoro’s adoption, Kuina slips and falls and dies on some stairs right in front of Zoro, and Koushirou, although he does not blame Zoro, stops training him in his depression.

It’s been a year since then, and Zoro has kept it up but felt that his swordsmanship never felt as _liberating_ as it should.

“Until,” Zoro finishes his story softly, “I met you.”

And in that sentence and meeting of eyes is a complete emotion of _I understand, me too, it’s okay, you are not lost anymore, come with me –_ all things that could never be said otherwise.

Then it is Luffy’s turn to talk and Zoro _hurts_ but does not pity because Luffy would never want that.

(Later, he’ll wonder if he’s the only one Luffy’s told the entirety of his past too. If he’s the only one who knows that Luffy used to have two brothers (one lost to a horrific car crash and another to a gun fight), had a bar for a home and a gang for a family, a jungle for a playground, a terrorist for a father and a piece of shit for a grandfather. He’ll wonder if he’s the only one who will ever know the secrets that bled onto a kitchen floor, the secrets of a familiar scar beneath an eye, wonder if this will be a story told only in the rain in a Camaro filled with aching wounds.

He’ll wonder.) 

They fall asleep to the dwindling pitter patter of the rain, soft smiles on their faces as Luffy buries his head into Zoro’s shoulder and Zoro snoozes into a face full of black hair.

\- 

The fourth day of their meeting starts in a lethargic haze – the kind that comes with a great burden being eased suddenly and the exhausted triumph of _its over with_.

This haze also disappears when half way through the day, after another spar, a nap, and a dine and dash, Luffy asks Zoro _the_ question.

A question, Zoro knows he should have the answer too, but can’t bear to say it all the same.

He doesn’t sleep in the car with Luffy that night, and instead goes back to the house where he and Koushirou stay.

(He can’t seem to call it home anymore, and really doesn’t that answer Luffy’s question more than anything else?)

\- 

Zoro’s earliest memory is of shining blue waters and a painted sail hanging over head. The voices around him are muted but there is something soft, almost like grass, beneath him and a warm sunshine on his face. 

It’s a nice memory, but one Zoro cannot pinpoint, because according to the records, Zoro showed up one day, two years old, on an old woman’s doorstep, wearing clothes that reeked of hay and farm life.

Certainly not a life at sea. 

Zoro has never even seen the sea, except in that memory, a memory that has felt more whole than he has ever been in his entire life.

He’s an orphan, people call him a loner, a lone wolf, his Sensei calls him antisocial and his few friends speak for themselves. 

But – Zoro doesn’t see it that way. He thinks he would be a loner, content to get lost in the wilderness and find his own path, if not for the fact that he was incredibly certain something was waiting for him.

Looking at Monkey D. Luffy’s smile, he thinks he found it.

-

After Luffy asks _the_ question, Zoro disappears back into his old routine for one day. He goes home, trains, eats dinner with Sensei (which is always a quiet affair) and then goes to sleep. The fifth day, he wakes up and heads to school, Johnny and Yosaku running into him along the way and picking him up ( _You were heading in the wrong direction big bro!_ It’s funny – they’re two years older than him and traveling instead of going to school but he’s still their _big bro Zoro)_ He sits through classes and naps in the ones he doesn’t like or simply can’t understand, and eats lunch with Koby in the back of the cafeteria. He sends one last glare to the bully who used to always pick on Koby, and goes home to train and eat dinner with Koushirou.

Then – he falls asleep to the thought of _it was nice to see them all one last time._

-

He wakes up on the sixth day and immediately packs his bags with the necessities – katanas, cleaning kit, clothes, phone, one blanket, and all the cash he has.

(He thinks about taking the photo of him, Sensei, and Kuina, on the day of his first championship win, but decides against it.

Like _before_ – the past should not bind them.)

He pulls the tracking chip Koushirou had put in his phone out, and uses his debit card to get even more cash before tossing it away. Then, duffle bag over his shoulder and half a day wasted, he heads over to the abandoned lot, where Luffy is still sitting on the hood of his car, looking out to the endless horizon of gravel and sun and sky, straw hat firmly on his head. 

He’s waiting for an answer.

The bag dumped in the backseat and the maniacal grin is answer enough, and the straw hat placed firmly on a green haired head is just confirmation of the fact.

Yet, Luffy asks as he’s sliding into the driver’s seat. “Ready to go Zoro?”

-

_A question, asked under the hot sun and in an open lot, just like befo. Phrased differently, but the essence of the original question still echoes in his voice_

_“Hey Zoro. Come with me?”_

_-_

_“Aye aye, Captain.”_

Six and a half days after Zoro meets Luffy, they set out roaring down the streets and leaving the small valley town of Shells Town that Zoro’s been trapped in half his life behind without a second thought or not explaining where he is.

There are no promises, no dreams, no oaths sworn or battles won. There is just the fixing of an internal compass, finally directed to what truly matters ( _them all together again at last)_ and the slow filling in of an aching heart.

(People say he’s always been lost, but maybe it was just he wasn’t meant for where he was – was meant for _his_ side, _his captain’s, his king’s_ side instead)

It’s a good life as any, and - riding in a beat-up Camaro with the windows down, music blasting, and a license-less kid driving them - Zoro’s more content than he’s been in a long, _long_ time.

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty! Second piece of this series! Your comments made me cry guys I didn't mean to make you so sad !! Anyway, so I hope you like this piece! I'm not exactly happy with some parts but on the whole I like it. 
> 
> I have two more pieces planned for this series so far (Sanji/Gin for you starving souls, and another depressing story lol) and after that well - I have some ideas but you are welcome to give me suggestions!!
> 
> I am also on Tumblr! Come yell at me at [whirlybirdwrites!](https://whirlybirdwrites.tumblr.com)
> 
> As always, please tell me if you spot any mistakes, see any corrections, or have any suggestions to improve my writing! I am always looking for ways to do so!
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> -Whirly


End file.
